Hi, Boss Gals! I want to share a special guest post with you. This person had no idea a leadership coaching email would turn into a post on Boss Gal. I’ve been writing a lot about life moments and embracing them. Whether that’s resetting, laughing or dancing colorfully in the rain. I watched Collateral Beauty with Will Smith and in it he refers to time, love and death, then received this email first thing after watching the movie. Sign? I think so. Once you read this you’ll see why the time thing struck a chord with me…and so soon. I believe in signs and moments in time – but it’s how we use those moments that define us, not how the moments use us. Let’s jump right into his message below…and take our time reading.
The Message: “It occurred to me that if you’re anything like I am, you can give the clock and the calendar way to much power in your life. I mean I’m not even suggesting you clear it, clean it, or even try to escape it. No need. I’m just saying how we look at it and react to it changes everything. We can look at these things like they are alive and doing something to us. As if they are creating stuff to do and we’re just trying to keep up. Like those clocks and calendars own us. But I don’t think they do. The lens you see these things through is powerful! The way you choose to feel them is powerful!
If we’re not careful the minutes, the moments, the months end up making their mark on us instead of us making our mark on them. The clock keeps moving; there is no denying that. But we have this incredible opportunity to be a moment making people. To make moments matter. To feel them, experience them, be aware of them as they are happening. To not let them own us, but for us to own them.
We have the opportunity to not just do the moment as it passes, but to make that moment matter (for you, and for others). We have the opportunity to see moments differently than most. But you do have to see them, then choose how to feel them, and then what you do and how you experience them will change everything.
Someone once told me that leadership isn’t actually about action, but reaction. I didn’t like that. I still have trouble with that phrase. But here’s the thing he said leadership was about how we respond to stuff. He said stuff is going to happen. It is happening. All around us, all the time. The fact is your calendar does have all kinds of stuff on it and moments do keep coming at you. So how you choose to respond is everything. How you chose to see what is going on around you is everything. But if you’re just doing and not seeing.. you’re gonna miss the moment. He said your leadership is all about how you respond to the unexpected (moment), the unavoidable (moment), the unquestionable (moment). And then I would add that I think how you see those moments and how you see your calendar is actually the first step in dictating how you will respond. Most of us aren’t even trying to see them.. we’re just doing. Yeah, you’ve done that. You might be doing that today. I do too. Much too often. Perhaps this week we can practice on seeing and experiencing the clock and the calendar differently? Perhaps we can become self-aware of the moments we are in so we can harness their power, own them.. and then make them. Leave your mark.
Own the moments. Don’t let the clock and the calendar own you. Be a moment maker. For you and for others. See it. Feel it.”
Wow, is that not powerful? Feel a spark? Time, love, death. He nailed it in this one. Time is what you make of it, not what it makes of you. Start your week out right tomorrow and let the calendar run your life a little less. Walk away for a moment, take breaks, walk outdoors smiling ear to ear listening to your favorite song, feel colors and let them burn within you, dance in the rain, smile at everyone you see even if you don’t want to, e.m.b.r.a.c.e. every moment.
Kindness, beauty & strength,
Alicia
